Texas Attorney General Opinion: DM-284 Page: 3 of 21
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Mr. J. Robert Hunter - Page 3
supervise or control public business, is not a "governmental body," and is not subject to
the Open Meetings Act. Attorney General Opinion JM-331 (1985).
In Attorney General Opinion H-772 (1976), this office set forth five prerequisites
for a meeting of an entity to be subject to the Open Meetings Act:
(1) The body must be an entity within the executive or legislative
department of the state;
(2) The entity must be under the control of one or more elected or
appointed members;
(3) The meeting must involve formal action or deliberation between
a quorum of members;4
(4) The discussion or action must involve public business or public
policy, and
(5) The entity must have supervision or control over that public
business or policy. [Footnote added; citations omitted.]
This opinion concentrates on the first, second and fifth criteria because they are relevant to
whether an entity is subject to the Open Meetings Act. The third and fourth criteria are
relevant to determining whether a particular meeting is subject to the Open Meetings Act,
an issue which we have not been asked to address.5
Significantly for our purposes, the Open Meetings Act has been held applicable to
a quasi-private entity which was an auxiliary enterprise of a state university. See Gulf
Regional, 746 S.W.2d 803. In Gulf Regional, the court addressed the legal status of the
Gulf Regional Education Television Affiliates ("GRETA"), a group of independent school
districts and parochial schools that provided educational television programming in
conjunction with the public television station of the University of Houston. Id. at 804.
The member schools elected representatives to a board of directors who advised the
4Since Attorney General Opinion H-772 (1976) was issued, the legislature has amended the
definition of "deliberation" to include "a verbal exchange during a meeting... between a quorum of a
governmental body and another person." Govt Code 551.001(2).
5The test for determining whether an entity is a "governmental body" subject to the Open
Meetings Act involves different factors than one might take into account in determining whether an entity
is a "state agency" for other purposes. Compare authorities cited in text supra with Texas Catastrophe
Property Ins. Ass'n v. Morales, 975 F.2d 1178 (5th Cir. 1992), cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 1815 (1993)
(holding that the Texas Catastrophe Property Insurance Association ("CATPOOL") was not "part of the
state" for purposes of being barred from bringing an action against the state largely because its funds were
private); League Gen'l Ins. Co. v. Michigan Catasophic Claims As'n, 458 N.W.2d 632 (Mich. 1990)
(holding that the Michigan Catastrophic Claims Association was not an "agency" subject to the Michigan
Administrative Procedure Act); Attorney General Opinion JM-67 (1983) (suggesting that CATPOOL is
not a state agency under APA because it is wholly controlled by the State Board of Insurance).(DM-284)
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: DM-284, text, January 11, 1994; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth274093/m1/3/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.